Posts Tagged ‘bad money decisions’

I ask not out of nosiness, but because tomorrow various arms of the financial great and the financial good are gathering together in Cambridge [Money Guidance Pathfinder conference] and in three days will, it seems, work out how to teach us all better money management.

Well. No. I’m being unfair. This process started here in 2006 when the Treasury declared it would happen. And they did this because the OECD decided it should [though you will hear the government take the credit as though it was all their own work!].

And what it seems they are actually discussing is the detail of a pilot progamme in the north-east and the north-west of England to start next year.

The idea behind it is to give much more, and much more readily available, information on what credit in particular and money management in general is all about. And I think we have to applaud the idea, and the fact that it is making progress – it may even be that the UK is moving faster than any other country on it.

The conference includes banks as well as existing free information providers like the Citizen’s Advice Bureax, so there is a chance it really will deliver good advice.

But why, whenever I see the word stakeholder in these announcements, do I feel about to be in need of the guidance of Caveat Emptor[let the buyer beware – or look for the small print – or hold tight to your purse]?

At least we can watch and wonder with the hope that in a few years most people really will be made more aware of the dangers of bad money decisions, without the need to have been through the nightmare of bad debt first – as so many of us have been.

I am writing a blog page on the Money Guidance process, but I will take a few days to put it together.